Tethered (54 page)

“Are you going to tell me where you live, Donya, or should I kiss you here on the street?”

“I’m not really down for the insta-love thing,” I said in a voice that didn’t match the dazed look on my face.

“No one said anything about love, princess. It’s just a kiss.”

“If it’s just a kiss then you can just kiss someone else, couldn’t you?”

“But I want to kiss you,” he said in a purposely pouty voice that somehow sounded sexy.

“I’ll tell you what, Jerry,” I said, putting a hand on the lapel of his coat. “I’ll take a cab home, alone. You can call me tomorrow and ask me out on a proper date. You can ask me for a kiss if the date goes well.”

He groaned. “I can honestly say that you’re the first woman to so adamantly turn me down.”

“Well, there are some things you have to work for in this world,” I said, stepping away from him. I stepped to the curb and waved for a taxi. “And I am one of them.”

With perfect timing, a cab pulled up to the curb.

“I don’t have your number,” Jerry said, chuckling.

“Guess you’ll have to work for that, too,” I said and climbed into the back of the taxi.

Most men would have been furious, or at least irritated, but when I looked back at Jerry standing on the sidewalk, I only saw his dimpled grin.

*~*~*

Later that night after I changed into some warm clothes, I sat on the bed with my laptop and navigated to
My Space
. I wasn’t really into the site, but a lot of my friends had a page that I could follow and there was a surprisingly decent amount of people that followed me. I never really had much to say or post, though. I mostly went on there to stalk Emmet. Lately he had been posting pictures of his self and a woman named Cassandra, Casey for short. There was nothing particularly damming about the photographs. They were at the beach in one, standing side by side wearing sunglasses and smiling at the camera with the sea behind them. There was another of them wearing hiking gear in some hilly region I was guessing not to be Florida since I had never seen anything but flatness during my visits there. Another of them making ridiculous faces. The one I hated the most was of the one with his arm across her shoulders and her arm around his waist. Friends posed like that all of the time, but something in their smiles just seemed…intimate.

I shut the laptop and twisted my hands in my lap. Whenever I spoke to Emmet, he never spoke about Casey, and it wasn’t that he
had
to, but the fact that he
didn’t
made me think he didn’t want me to know about it. He thought me to be lacking in the internet skills. He knew that I had an assistant that mostly ran my page and I typically had nothing to do with it, so of course he wouldn’t expect me to find him on the website or to scroll through everything he posted since it was made public.

I opened the laptop again and looked at his page. In the short minutes that I had sat pondering, he had posted again. My chest tingled just knowing that he was awake and moving around down there in Florida, probably getting ready for bed. I smiled a little as I leaned in to read what he had just posted, but my smile quickly faded. He had posted another picture of him and Casey. Again, it wasn’t damming in anyway on its own, even if he was embracing her. It was the words that accompanied the photo that had me biting my fist to keep from sobbing.

“
Sometimes you have to let go of the past to embrace your future.”

I could have been misunderstanding what he meant, but I knew it as sure as I knew that I was sitting on that bed within four walls that the past he was speaking of was me, and the future was
her
.

Ironically, the closer I got to stepping away from my career over the years, the lower the odds became that Emmet and I would end up back together. The tether was ever present and like a live wire whenever we were in close proximity, but away from me, Emmet carried on with his life, to the fullest. I still had some hope, though. I couldn’t even really get involved with any other guy because I didn’t think it would be fair to them. I didn’t think I could possibly love anyone else, but it was possible for Emmet, obviously.

I closed the laptop and put it carelessly on the floor before turning out my light and curling up under my blankets,
refusing
to cry myself to sleep.

*~*~*

At nearly one in the morning, my cell phone rang next to me on the bed. I shot up in bed when I heard the noise and stared down at it in confusion for a moment before comprehending that I was supposed to answer it. Then my heart began to race, because only a few people had my number and none of them would call me in the middle of the night unless someone was terribly sick, dying, or dead.

I fumbled with the phone without checking the caller ID display and answered.

“Hello?”

“Good morning,” Jerry said. “Would you mind calling your security and telling him to let me come up?”

“Of course I mind,” I snapped. “It’s almost one in the morning.”

I put a hand over my heart, trying to calm it

“I know what time it is. Now be a good girl and call down to the desk. Even though I’ve proven to them that I am a famous athlete, they still won’t let me past the lobby.”

“Maybe they don’t follow hockey,” I guessed.

“Damn adorable,” he said. “Come on, princess. It’s getting lonely down here. I might have to cuddle up to Bill and Ward here, and I’m guessing by the way they’re eyeing me they would not appreciate it.”

“How did you get my number? How did you find out where I live?” I questioned.

“My publicist called your publicist and told her that you and I had gone out to dinner together but I accidentally left your phone number on a napkin in the diner. Then your publicist called your assistant and I only had to show her my dimples and talk about our shoot a little today and she was very forthcoming.”

I scowled. I didn’t use Eileen to pick up my dry cleaning, to do my food shopping, or to do any dirty work. She had to keep my schedule straight, screen my calls and take messages. Really, it wasn’t a lot. All I asked for in return –
demanded
in return – was for her to be discrete. In fact, she had to sign a confidentiality agreement when I hired her. Telling Jerry my phone number
and
my address were grounds for firing
and
a lawsuit.

“She’s fired,” I growled.

“Don’t fire her,” Jerry said soothingly. “She really believed that she was doing you a favor.”

“Then she should be fired for stupidity,” I snapped.

“Call security, princess. They’re eyeing me like they’re going to throw me out.”

“Why are you calling me at one in the morning?” I asked, ignoring his observations.

“Last night you said I could call you tomorrow. It’s tomorrow.”

“I meant during the hours when I am awake.”

“You’re awake now,” he said and then purred “Come on, princess. Let down your figurative hair so I can climb up.”

I shivered slightly, and smiled, because that was kind of sweet. And stupid.

“You’re hard to get rid of,” I said. “I’ll see you in a few minutes, but you’re not staying long.”

I ended the call before he could object and then called down to security to give Jerry permission to come upstairs. A few minutes later, I was leaning in my doorway watching him stride towards me. He had changed into a pair of jeans and I could see a gray sweater peeping through the top of his jacket. He had on a knit cap to keep his head warm and a pair of leather gloves. He looked really good and I looked at him appreciatively.

“Do you always stalk women?” I asked him when he stopped a couple of feet away from me.

“I never have to,” he said seriously. “None of them are as hard to get as you.”

“I guess they fall into your lap,” I said dryly.

“Sometimes,” he shrugged.

“You know if you’re trying to win me over, you’re failing miserably. You may as well pull your tail between your legs and go home now.”

“I’m not going home because you’re about to invite me in,” he said and rocked back on his heels.

“No I’m not,” I scoffed. “I’m sending you away.”

“If you were going to send me away,” he said as he leaned in close to me. He put an arm above my head on the door frame. His body almost touched mine. “You would have done it before I got up here,” he concluded.

“You’re standing in my personal space,” I tried to say it like I was irritated, but it came out kind of breathy.

“I know,” he smirked and then looked me up and down.

“So, step the hell back before I fuck you up,” I whispered as I looked into his eyes.

“Oh, you’re a tough girl,” he teased.

“When I have to be,” I shrugged.

“Well, tough girl, I have news for you. You’re already fucking me up in ways I’ve never been fucked up. I only just met you not even twenty-four hours ago and I can’t stop thinking about you. It’s like you crawled under my skin and nailed yourself to my body, because I can’t shake you.”

“Sounds painful,” I managed to say and swallowed hard.

“You have no idea. Can I kiss you?”

I looked at his lips and licked my own. “No,” I whispered.

“You’re going to change your mind,” he said, running a finger down my cheek and over the curve of my neck. “You’re going to let me inside first, and then you’re going to let me kiss your fucking adorable mouth.”

“You think so?” I breathed. I was seriously feeling warm in the chilly hallway.

“I know so,” he whispered in my ear.

His lips grazed across my cheek, but stopped at the corner of my mouth. Bravely, I turned my head so that my lips grazed his, making him gasp.

“Work for it,” I whispered against his mouth.

Before he understood what was happening, I had slipped back into my apartment and closed and locked the door.

“Call me tomorrow,” I called through the door.

“It
is
tomorrow!” he called back in frustration.

“Well, you fucked up by coming by so early. So now you’ll call me
tomorrow
, and if you call me before nine a.m. tomorrow morning, I won’t answer.”

I heard him groan and it sounded like he dropped his forehead to the door. He muttered something in what I presumed to be Spanish and I even found that rather sexy.

“Will I get to kiss you tomorrow?” he asked, sounding hopeful.

“We’ll see,” I said. “Goodnight,
Geraldo
.”

He let out another groan and then said “Goodnight, princess.”

Jerry was well behaved and didn’t call me until nine the next morning. I agreed to go out with him that afternoon to Rockefeller Center to go ice-skating and then dinner afterward. I didn’t let him into my apartment and I didn’t let him kiss me on that first date, or our second, third, and fourth dates. He was comically frustrated, especially since our dates were so spread out due to our schedules, but he never tried to push his way into my apartment or force me into the kiss. For our fifth date I invited him to my apartment for dinner. While I was in the middle of cooking and chatting, Jerry very quietly and very politely asked me if he could kiss me.

“Okay,” I had whispered.

“Yeah?” he asked, eyes open wide.

“Yeah,” I said with a smile.

Jerry held my face carefully in his hands and pressed his plump lips to mine. He was very gentle and very sweet as his lips moved slowly against mine. When his tongue sought entry, I opened immediately and sighed as his tongue made contact with my own. Slowly, he stroked the inside of my mouth with his moist tongue. I wrapped my arms around his neck and he wrapped his around my waist and pulled my body flush with his. He kissed me until it was clear that something was burning on the stove. He hastily released me, reached over to the stove, moved the offending pot to a cool burner and snapped the stove off. Before I could object, he had pressed me up against the counter and his tongue was slipping into my mouth again.

Chapter Forty-Five

Emmet shook Jerry’s hand and smiled and said how it was nice to meet him and even went as far as saying he was a fan. If I wasn’t able to see past the surface of Emmet’s words and demeanor, I would have believed he was genuinely happy to make Jerry’s acquaintance, but I
could
see past the surface. I was the only one who could. I had insight that no one else in the universe had. I could
feel
his seething hatred of Jerry and his pain and resentment towards me.

After seeing a small article about Jerry and me in one of the gossip magazines, Emmet had called me and asked me if Jerry and I were together. I didn’t think he really had any right to ask, but at the time, I was honestly able to say that we weren’t serious yet, and then a couple of weeks later I brought him home to meet the parents. If I had known Emmet was going to be there, I wouldn’t have gone.

Spring training started in two days and Jerry was leaving Louisiana the next afternoon for Clearwater. It was a last minute decision of mine, to ask him to come meet the family before he headed to training. He was reluctant in the beginning, because he usually didn’t enter into long-term relationships, let alone meet the family of the woman he was seeing. We still had not labeled our relationship after several weeks. I had the feeling he was waiting to see how I handled his busy schedule, but I was interested in seeing how he handled mine.

After dinner that night, Fred engaged Jerry in a conversation about fishing. Apparently Jerry loved to fish, too.

“I know a great spot to fish at this time of night,” Fred had said as an offering.

“Sure, why not,” Jerry had agreed easily.

“Don’t get eaten by a gator,” I warned him.

“I promise you, princess, if it is me or the gator, I’ll walk through that door with some hot gator skin accessories for you to model for me.” He kissed the corner of my mouth tenderly and then followed Fred out of the room.

“I like him,” Sam said slyly as she collected dishes from the table.

“Me, too,” I said with a smile.

“I was starting to believe you turned into a lesbian,” she said. “If you were a lesbian, that would be okay, but I have to admit that I’m much happier knowing you can have sex with a penis and give me grand babies. I was worried you were going to dry up so bad your hymen would have grown back.”